Wireless File Transfer Question

[LarryG]

I have a little computer problem that perhaps someone here can help me with, even if said help amounts to, "No, there's no easy way to do that."

At work I have a desktop computer, with Internet access.

At home I have a desktop computer, with no Internet access.

In my pocket I have an iPhone, with a data plan. I got my iPhone in part so I would have at least rudimentary Internet access and email at home. The experiment is only about two months old now but, So Far So Good.

We use Google Mail at work, and my iPhone syncs to Google's cloud, so I can manage my email using either, at any time. Works great.

I back up my data files on both my home and work computers, and keep files in synch between them, via an external hard drive. Also works great.

With me so far? Okay, here's the problem:

There are times when I need to get a file attached to an email onto my home computer, but I would rather not have to drive to the office, save the attachment to the external drive, drive back home, etc etc etc.

So: is it possible, in some cheap/easy way, to set up some sort of wireless network (Intranet?) that would allow me to to essentially email the file from my iPhone to my home computer?

Or something like that?

Any and all help, assistance, advice, etc. will be greatly appreciated!

[LarryG]

I do use Dropbox, on my iPhone and work computer. It does work well, but I can't use it at home because I have no Internet access at home (and would rather not have to pay for it). There's no way to get to the Dropbox cloud without Internet access on the specific computer or device. That is, I can access my Dropbox files on my iPhone while I'm at home, but I can't access them from my computer at home.

[dbhost]

You could use your phone for WiFi tethering to give yourself internet access to the computer. Another option is to add an FTP server to the phone. I don't know if iPhone supports this, but I know that Android does. Then you just FTP what you want to / from the phone...

[LCHIEN]

i reread your message and saw no internet onthe home computer, so dropbox is not the answer.

Does your employer have a remote service like IPass which is a dial up service with local or 800 numbers. You could call in with a modem and read your e-mail and download it.

[pelligrini]

Can you teather your PC to your phone to give you internet access? Teathers can be a little slow, but if you're just after a few files it should be workable. Are there any VPN capabilities with your work network?

I don't know about the iPhone, but there are remote desktop and file management apps for droid and windows phones. I haven't tried with my phones though. I would prefer to take out a step and not have to try to control my work PC off a little phone screen. I bet theres a way to either remotely control your work PC with your phone or be able to browse files and download them to your phone, which then can be moved or emailed to your PC.

Since I have an internet connection on my home systems I use RAdmin or sometimes Remote Desktop in Windows to connect to my work PC or Servers from home. I have to connect through a VPN to get from home to work, but I opened up the ports on one machine to get from work to home. When working from home I'll usually just map the network drives. I sure wish we had a fatter pipe at work.

[Mr__Bill]

Can you not just plug your phone into the home computer and transfer the file via the usb cable? I do this all the time with a windows cell phone, it shows up as another drive on the home computer.

Bill

[LinuxRandal]

Do you have permission to be adding remote access to your work computer?
(could be fired for this if not)

I am wondering about something like a pogoplug device, with a small portable drive attached (flash or hard drive). You could take the drive home or remotely access it (via the phone)
If I read this correctly, while the home has no internet, you have internet on your phone. Can your phone hook into your home network wirelessly? (act to push something from a remote location to your home pc)

EDIT: Several video's on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMJIvB06ez8

[Cubsfan]

I think you're mostly out of luck with the iPhone. The tethering idea is really the only viable one. There is no access to the filesystem of the iPhone, so you can't really save an attachment and then transfer it to your computer.

The only other option is to jailbreak, but I'm guessing that's not something you're going to want to do.

[Cochese]

Tethering is going to add at least $20 to your phone bill every month, and at that point you might as well get DSL or dial-up for your house.

You could install this to both computers to mount the iPhone like a drive. http://www.macroplant.com/phonedisk/

[LarryG]

Success, I think.

I've been poking around the Intarwebs and the App Store, and with the help of several suggestions and clues posted in this thread, it looks like I have it figured out.

There's a category of apps that allows the iPhone to be accessed like a disk drive. Files can be dragged and dropped on and off the phone either by USB cable (typically through iTunes) or by turning the phone into an FTP server (via Wi-Fi), or both. Most of these apps also act as file viewers for various common file types. I tried a couple free apps of this kind, realized I was on the right track with the FTP version, found that there were a couple gotchas that didn't quite work the way I wanted/needed, kept looking, finally found a freebie that worked exactly as I needed and had a $1.99 paid version with still more features. So I went with that, and it looks like I'm in bidness. Thank you, everyone, for tossing out the various ideas and what-about-thises that led me to the answer.

My iPhone is on Verizon, and tethering would have been the fall-back position if all else failed. Or not, since, as mentioned, that would add $20 to my monthly phone bill and I'm not sure I'll need the capability often enough to justify that.

Loring, the app I settled on is called Phone Drive and its overall functionality is essentially identical to Dropbox, except that it all happens wirelessly and with no need to install any software on the PC.

Thanks again to everyone for your input!

[woodturner]

At home I have a desktop computer, with no Internet access.

Do you have a home phone line and a modem? Netzero and Juno still offer free dialup access, so with a 56K modem you can call in and do your email (up to 20 hours of online time per month) for free. It works pretty well for email, but it's on the slow side for larger files. However, when you consider that something like 30% of internet users are still on dial-up, it seems practical for many users.